Language in Use 45
The goal of this unit is to show how a successful use of language often depends upon the speaker being able to assume considerable background knowledge of his topic in his audience. It explores the language of sports commentating by getting the class to do the job for themselves and thereby discover how far the commentator does rely upon his audience's knowledge and experience.
[1] This session requires an extended class discussion of how professional TV or radio commentators tackle a major sport. The class should come to the session having watched or listened to recent commentaries and, where possible, made notes on how it was done.
[2] This session should focus the discussion upon the degree to which the commentator expects his audience to know the game. In order to bring out this point, make a collection of terms from the class's notes and get them to pick out any which they do not understand, and consider what they miss by not being familiar with the terms of the sport. Before the end of the session, arrange for small groups to do their own tape-recording--e.g. commentaries on a forthcoming school fixture.
[3] Play back selections from the commentaries which the class has made and compare them with the professional one, to see which relies more heavily upon technical knowledge in the audience. The class can then look at the way commentators express their judgements of the quality of the game or of an individual player.